12 Easy Steps to Selling Your Home in the Grand Rapids Real Estate Market.
Deciding to Sell Your Home?
What Home Selling Steps Are You Going to Take?
12 part series Easy to Follow Home Selling Steps
Providing you with key home selling information.
Each Day, Over the Next 12 Days Flexit Realty will be adding a Step in the
"12 Easy Steps to Selling YOUR Home Guide". Content previously published on the FlexitRealtyBlog.com
Step # 1 Estimating your homes Sell Price.
The number one question all home owners ask, “How Much Money will be left over for me (family) after I sell my home”.
This question of home value can be answered if you know how much your home is worth in today’s housing market, where your home is located. This question has had many answers and most are just cliches. One of my favorite lines used by sales agents and taught by brokers. “Your home is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay”. Although this cliche has some truth, it is not the final answer to pricing your home for sale. You should also consider, no two homes are alike, even if they have the same floor plan and square footage.
How can that be, two homes built exactly the same sell for different prices? You are the reason a home sells for more or less than another home with the same layout, square footage and location. (neighborhood)
Estimating Your Homes Estimated Sell Price Is More than a Printout of Home Comparisons!
Homes are decorated differently, painted and maintained different, landscaping accents create different looks visually. Features and styles accented with a keen eye with presentation in mind can change your homes curb appeal. Homes may look the same on the outside but when the front door opens it can be a very different feel inside.
This is a few variables when pricing your home sell over the competition. Next you must know who the competition is when selling your home? Real estate agents do a market analysis to see what asking prices for currently listed comparable homes like yours are on their local MLS. Real Estate agents most often add the homes that pending (under contract) along with those homes sold in your area. Sold homes sell prices should only be used if they sold in the last six months. The Grand Rapids housing market changes day by day, as most communities. Homes sold longer than six months ago are of little value, except as trend information. Trends can help you predict if the market is going up, down or staying flat. One month does not make a trend, I just had to throw that in, for those that like to be trend setters.
Now, we have sell prices for homes actively listed for sale on the Grand Rapids Real Estate Agents MLS (Multiple Listing Service). We know your square footage, location, condition of your home. This will give us an idea of your home selling price. We still do not know the competition yet, homes you will be selling against. We know addresses of most of the homes for sale in you immediate area. What about the homes that are not listed on the MLS, should you consider them as competitors? Yes, is the only reasonable answer, when creating your sell price. We already know the number one thing for sale by owners do wrong. For Sale By Owners price their homes to high most of the time, and is the #1 reason for not selling, according to a study done by the National Association of Realtors.
For Sale By Owners selling their own homes have some advantages and disadvantages when home selling. If you are reading “12 Steps to Selling Your Home”, you are considering using a professional real estate agent. For Sale By Owners, in most cases, do not believe or want any advice on how to sell their homes from professionals that sell homes for a living. This can be to your advantage.
Your next step is to visit your competition! Yes, make appointments and go through the homes you consider to be competition to selling your home. You want to see if the condition, landscaping, interior, carpets, paint, cupboards, trim, fixtures are as nice as yours. Does the home have any smells? Is the walls and trim needing attention?
You also want to see the decorating and layout with furniture in place. Does the home have to much furniture, closets stuffed full? Is the flow open or cramped? Look at these homes with buyer eyes. One of the best items I do for seller is give them a buyers checklist! I want my sellers to have “buyer eyes”. I want sellers to understand, it does not matter what they think as sellers, it matters what buyers think! This may seem harsh or odd but your goal as a seller is to sell you home. Your other goal as a seller is to appeal to the widest range of buyers as possible.
Now, you are ready to go back home prepared to price your home to sell! Once you have visited the homes you thought were the competition I'll bet you have changed your mind. Some of the home have come off the competition list and others have been added! You are equipped with personal knowledge of homes competitive to yours and their current sell prices. This allows you to use housing market intelligence to price your home to sell.
Quick review of Step #1 "Estimating Your Homes Sell Price Value. You have learned your immediate market, what the competition has to offer and the prices at which homes are being priced for sale. You also know features and benefits that other home have and do not have, so you can sell against them. You can highlight your property descriptions to help you sell your home faster.
Links to the Next Steps will be activated as they are published.
12 Easy Steps to Selling Your Home.
- Estimating your homes value.
- Who is your homes competition?
- Deciding to sell with a real estate agent or without.
- Marketing Your Home for Maximum Buyer Exposure
- Property Descriptions, survey and narrative details
- Preparing the outside of your home for sale.
- Preparing the inside of your home for sale.
- Photos, the visual details to attract buyers
- Showing your home to potential buyers
- Financing
- Open Houses.
- Negotiating Your Homes Sale
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